Southampton left it very late to see off ten-man Birmingham City on Saturday.
Joe Aribo came off the bench to score the last of the seven goals in a thrilling contest at St Andrews, with the 96th minute strike securing a much needed 4-3 win for Southampton.
Adam Armstrong ended a run of four games without a goal, whilst loanee David Brooks and former Birmingham striker Che Adams scored the other goals for Russell Martin‘s side.
Once Birmingham went down to ten men with Southampton 3-2 up, many would have thought the result was sewn up. However, this was not the case with the Blues equalising in the 77th minute.
Aribo’s heroics spared the Saints’ blushes, but this further highlighted a key problem that Southampton must address or risk seeing their promotion hopes fizzle out.
Southampton have to improve defensively
Birmingham are a side in decent form and are a difficult side to face in front of their home crowd.
However, if Southampton are to keep their promotion hopes alive they cannot afford to concede goals at the rate they currently are. They may have come out on top on Saturday, but it is not sustainable to require three or four goals to beat your opponents every week.
In the record-breaking run of 22 consecutive league games unbeaten, up until the 22nd of those games without defeat Southampton conceded just 13 goals. In the seven games in all competitions since beating Rotherham United 2-0 in the first week of February, Martin’s side have shipped a massive 16 goals.
This is a real worry given it is a problem that Southampton appeared to have addressed, having conceded 19 in the opening eight league games prior to the unbeaten run. Southampton appear to have returned to type in the sense that they look shaky defensively and are making mistakes they simply weren’t making a matter of weeks ago.
Even if the Saints continue to edge high-scoring affairs over their opponents, it could damage their promotion dream given their goal difference is significantly less than both Leicester City and Leeds United above them and is one less than Ipswich Town.
After 35 games, Leicester have a goal difference of 40, with Leeds on 37, Ipswich on 25 and Southampton on 34. With 11 Championship hames to go, there isn’t an endless run of games for Southampton to bridge that gap.
Russell Martin keen to address defensive issues
Martin is a manager who likes to see his side play an attractive brand of football focussed on possession, but his positive ideology does not necessarily need to come at the expense of defensive solidity.
The Southampton manager is very aware of the defensive woes and speaking after the Birmingham thriller, said: “Let’s get the negative out of the way, we concede three rubbish goals so we have to stop that,”
“We have gone from being one of the meanest in terms of giving up chances to giving up too many recently”.
It is an issue Martin and his coaching staff understand the implications of and their promotion chances will significantly increase if they can get back to the solid side they were a month ago.
Speaking on the goals his side have been conceding recently, Martin said: “We will address that for sure. It’s down to lots of things, it’s not a tactical thing as we aren’t getting carved open – it’s rubbish goals.
“Against Millwall, it was a free-kick and a penalty and today it’s a big mistake early on in the game and a good counterattack.
“The second goal – I love them both but it’s nonsense. The third goal, they’re down to 10 men and have two guys in the box.”
There was a notable absentee on Saturday, as Southampton’s best player this season Kyle Walker-Peters missed the game through injury. Prior to the Birmingham game, the right-back had played every league minute this season and his absence meant a defensive reshuffle was required, with Taylor Harwood-Bellis shifting to a hybrid right-back/centre-back position and Jack Stephens partnering Jan Bednarek in central defence, with Ryan Manning at left-back.
Given the defensive issues have been apparent with Walker-Peters in the side, the three goals conceded against Birmingham cannot be attributed to his absence alone. However, perhaps the wider issue of constant changes to the back four is proving problematic as Southampton had a very settled back four when they were at their best defensively between the end of September and early February.
Perhaps, rather than any wholesale defensive changes to address the concerns, Martin’s best bet is to settle on his first-choice back four and allow them to consistently play together between now and the end of the campaign.